1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to articles for holding and maintaining beverages in a chilled state, and particularly concerns an improved chilled beverage container that is visually appealing, safe and durable.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Consumers often prefer to drink beverages such as juice, water and soft drinks in a chilled condition. Typically, such beverages are stored in a cooled area such as a refrigerator or ice chest in order to maintain the desired temperature for consumption. However, once they are removed from storage such beverages tend to heat up quickly, particularly outdoors on warm days.
Several well-established solutions have been advanced for keeping beverages cool for extended periods of time. For example, external insulating sleeves that are fabricated from a foamed rubber or plastic material are well known for keeping beverages that are stored in cans cool. In addition, a number of containers have been proposed that include a fluid or gel disposed in a chamber within the container that is designed to freeze when placed in a household freezer. When taken out of the freezer and filled with a beverage, such containers will prolong the period of time that the beverage is kept chilled. However, the durability and safety of such containers is questionable because expansion of the volume of the liquid or gel when it freezes and subsequent contraction when it melts places a great deal of mechanical stress on the container. Such thermal cyclic expansion and contraction could ultimately breach the chamber in which the liquid or gel is stored, which would be undesirable.
In addition, conventional containers that include a freezable thermal mass are typically bulky and not very visually appealing.
A need exists for a chilled beverage container that is more visually appealing, safer and more durable than conventional freezable chilled beverage containers.